


It's a Fucked up Life (And we wouldn't want it any other way)

by Aviss



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Domestic Avengers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:46:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aviss/pseuds/Aviss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fun wasn't the word Clint would use for the first few weeks of cohabitation. Dangerous, maybe. Tense, certainly. Insane for sure. But fun? Not so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Fucked up Life (And we wouldn't want it any other way)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chasingtides](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=chasingtides).



> Done for the LJ Avengers fest for chasingtides

"Come on guys, you know it makes sense for all the team to be in the same place. It will save time when assembling, and besides I have lots of space I can't rent in the Tower because nobody in their sane mind would want to live in the same building as Iron Man and the Hulk, no offense Bruce, so you'll be saving me from the embarrassment of trying to find tenants and not having any. We can't be considered to be in our sane minds anyway. It's been remodeled and reinforced already, and it can withstand Big Green here, so there isn't much damage you can do. Except you, Thor, but I have good insurance for that; it even covers acts of God. So it's that a yes, yes? We can all live together. It will be fun."  
  
…  
  
Fun wasn't the word Clint would use for the first few weeks of cohabitation. Dangerous, maybe. Tense, certainly. Insane for sure. But fun? Not so much.   
  
…  
  
Clint surveyed the destruction of the living room. It had been the second time in as many weeks that had happened, and no matter what Tony said about the quality of his insurance, there was no way he was fine with this.   
  
The couch where he had been reading was neatly broken in two, the entertainment center shooting off sparks everywhere, and the coffee table was smashed against the window, which was thankfully reinforced and didn't even have a scratch on it. On one corner of the room, Bruce was holding his frayed trousers with one hand and looking deathly embarrassed, on the other, Thor was holding onto MjoInir tightly and looked not so much embarrassed as undecided if he should finish up Hulk's work and smash everything around him, or flee the scene and pretend it hadn't been him, like a five year old caught with his hands on the cookie jar.   
  
"What set them off this time?" Natasha appeared at his side, her tone amused and resigned at the same time.   
  
"I've no idea. I was reading, and they argue all the time, so I wasn't paying attention." Luckily, his instincts and years of training had allowed him to jump off the couch and away from Hulk's fist the instant Bruce had transformed. It was a pity about the couch, though; he had liked it better than that previous one.   
  
Tony picked that moment to appear, probably alerted by JARVIS. He was covered in grease, a ripped t-shirt and dirty jeans low on his hips, and bags under his eyes the size of Texas. That explained the lack of Tony Stark around the tower for the past three days. He blinked at the scene, yawned, scrubbed his eyes and stared again.   
  
"Fuck, it's too early for this shit." Nobody pointed out it was past lunch time. "JARVIS, get us new furniture and all that." He disappeared into the kitchen and Clint and Natasha shared a look. It must be good being richer than God and not caring about a few thousand dollars in damages. Weekly.  
  
"Bruce or Thor?" Natasha asked with a sigh. Clint looked between the two of them, they still hadn't moved from their spots, eyeing each other warily.   
  
"Bruce," he said with his own sigh. "Wish me luck." He went to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Bruce turned to look at him, all the wariness morphing into guilt. "Come on, Big Guy, let's have a talk."  
  
Tony came back from the kitchen with a mug of coffee in his hand. "You know, there is a reason I had a gym especially made for us, so I wouldn't have to rebuild the Tower every couple of weeks," he said without even looking at them before he got into the elevator to go back to his lab.  
  
…  
  
The next morning, Bruce was cooking breakfast for Thor and himself when Clint got to the kitchen. They weren't speaking, and the tension was so thick it could be cut with a knife, but nothing was smashed.   
  
Clint called it a victory and stole a pancake from Thor's plate.   
  
By the time the rest of the team arrived the kitchen was in complete disarray and most of the plates were in pieces on the floor. Bruce, Thor and Clint were laughing.   
  
…  
  
Movie night wasn't planned. Truth be told, movie night didn't actually exist. It just so happened that between alien invasions, Doombots and assorted super-villains there was a lot of downtime to spend in the tower. And a state of the art home cinema system.  
  
Clint was going to the kitchen to get something to eat when Thor practically ambushed him.   
  
"Clint, my friend, where can I find one of your magnificent winged beasts to fight?" Thor asked out of the blue, eyes alight with excitement.   
  
Clint blinked at him. "Winged beasts?"  
  
"The ones that breathe fire and chase valiant young boys!"  
  
Something clicked and Clint looked past Thor to the TV where Harry Potter was being chased by the Norwegian Ridgeback during Goblet of Fire. He smiled. "JARVIS, can you tell me how long Thor has been watching the movie?" he asked.   
  
"Twelve minutes, Master Barton."  
  
"Can we play it from the beginning in five?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Come Thor, we'll make popcorn and watch it from the beginning. It's not real, but I think you'll like it anyway."  
  
They were settling on the couch with a bowl of popcorn, the credits starting for the movie when Bruce appeared.   
  
"What are you watching?" he looked at the screen and smiled. "Oh, Harry Potter. Is it the first one?"  
  
Clint scooted to the side to make room for Bruce. "No, Goblet of Fire."  
  
"It has magnificent flying beasts and daring challenges!" Thor added, eager as a puppy.   
  
"That it has, but you should see the other ones first. It's a tale of magic, discovery and the courage to fight enemies more powerful than yourself." Thor was practically bouncing up and down at the description and Clint sniggered.   
  
"Right, let's queue the movies in order, JARVIS." He looked at the empty seats. "Oh, and call Steve, he's probably going to enjoy it. Actually, inform everyone in case they want to watch."  
  
They did. Tony arrived almost at a run, took a look at the screen and said "Good, it hasn't started yet." Natasha slunk in after him, Steve already draped over the loveseat with his own bowl of popcorn.   
  
They commented almost everything, Tony declaring at the sorting "I would have been the greatest Ravenclaw ever." Nobody argued.   
  
By the time they got to the charms lesson, everyone was immersed in the story, which is the reason nobody saw Thor trying to  _swish and flick_ Mjoinir until it flew from his hand and crashed into the TV.   
  
"It is harder than she made it look," he declared, all eyes fixed on him.   
  
"JARVIS, please get a new flat screen delivered tomorrow," Tony said, amused and resigned. "We're watching the rest tomorrow, and you," he pointed a finger at Thor, "are not allowed to bring your hammer."  
  
…  
  
The bots started appearing about a month after Clint moved in.   
  
He should have expected it, really. There was rarely any person who didn't belong to the team or SHIELD in the Tower, with the exception of Pepper and Tony's friend, Rhodes. And yet, things were always clean, and clothes pressed and the fridge well stocked. Clint had imagined some kind of super-efficient and not-easily-scared cleaning crew, to whom Tony would probably pay a small fortune, came in when the team was out, or in the gym, or in other floors of the tower. Honestly, he hadn't given it more than a thought.   
  
The first time he saw one, Clint put a couple of arrows through it before approaching the thing to investigate. He hadn't been startled, he was too well trained for that, but emerging from the bathroom to find a weird cross between a flying saucer and a crab holding his discarded clothes in a pincer in the middle of his room warranted that response.   
  
Clint crouched next to the thing and poked it with the tip of an arrow. It didn't move, or make any noise. It was either broken or playing possum, and considering it had to be something made by Tony Stark, playing possum was a definite possibility. Clint stood up and took his shirt off, letting it fall to the floor.   
  
The thing didn't move.   
  
Clint moved back a couple of feet, looking at it. It still didn't move. He retreated to the other side of the room. No movement.  
  
With a shrug, Clint went back and picked his shirt off the floor and put it on again, he went to his wardrobe--actually a walk in closet, Tony did nothing by halves--to get a jacket and when he crossed the room to leave the thing was gone.   
  
The next time he saw the bot it had been reinforced and had four pincers instead of two.   
  
Clint put four arrows through it.   
  
…  
  
"Look, I know, super assassin-ninja instincts and whatever." Tony said, dumping the mangled form of yet another bot Clint had destroyed on top of the coffee table. It was practically unrecognizable, riddled with arrows and with the metal twisted in some parts. Yeah, the explosive arrows were definitely working. "But they are good bots, they do their job, and if you don't stop destroying them, you're going to have to do your own laundry because there is no way any cleaning company comes close to the Avenger's Tower. Their insurance companies tripled their rates between the third time Bruce Hulked out and the second alien attack. So it's either bots or you're going to be our own personal Cinderella."   
  
Clint was very tempted to destroy every single bot on sight just to see Tony enforcing that threat, but knowing him, Tony would just ask JARVIS to revoke all his privileges and he'd end up not being able to get even a coffee at the tower. Tony was devious like that.   
  
The next one, Clint used for target practice with only the sticky arrows. They would not destroy it, but they were a pain to clean.  
  
…  
  
Two weeks after the bot incident, Pepper Potts left the Avenger's Tower with a suitcase and red-rimmed eyes.   
  
"Take care of him," she had said, and since Clint had been the only one in the living room at the time to see it, the rest of the team had assumed that mean him, specifically.   
  
"What I mean is, she meant all of us," Clint said for the third time.   
  
They were all, or almost, in the living room, the TV playing the news without anyone paying any attention to them. Tony had been holed up inside his workshop for the past two days, and an intervention seemed to be in order.   
  
"We know that. And we will," Steve said in his ever serious tone. "But he has to let us."  
  
"Why am I the only one going down there, then?"  
  
"Because you don't want me there," Natasha said, a teasing smile on her lips. "You're terribly jealous, and Stark gets handsy when he's drunk. Which he will be. You might end up killing him, if I don't do it first, and then we'll have to go house hunting again. Bruce gets anxious around drunken people and angry when his friends are hurt. Stark will antagonize Steve more than he normally does, because he's a proud idiot that doesn't want to show his weakness to his childhood hero. And Thor is not the best to give advice for the brokenhearted. Also, you're JARVIS' favorite; he'll open the door for you." All of them looked at him expectantly and he finally caved.  
  
"You know we're really screwed when you rely on me for emotional support," Clint said before he turned around and went to the workshop, knowing he was being manipulated but unable to resist Natasha's smile.   
  
It was his one weakness he didn't mind known.   
  
…  
  
Tony was a mess. Not that Clint had expected him to be anything else, but after two months of living together, it was still shocking seeing how much damage he could do to himself if left to his own devices.   
  
As Natasha had called, JARVIS opened the door of the workshop the moment Clint arrived.   
  
The interior was dark, only the faint light from the holograms giving a blue glow that hid more than it showed. It was a good thing Clint had really good night vision. There were scattered tools and metal parts from what looked like broken bots, and a couple of empty bottles of really expensive scotch. Tony was slumped on a cot in one corner of the room, his shirt stained with grease and other things Clint preferred not to think about. He was awake, or at least his eyes were open. And the only reason he didn't have another bottle in his hand was that Dummy appeared to have confiscated it and was keeping it out of his reach.   
  
"Tony," he said, kneeling next to the cot and putting his hand gently on his shoulder. It was worrying that Tony didn't seem to have noticed him.   
  
Tony blinked slowly, turning his head to look at Clint. His eyes were wide and unfocused, and Clint wondered how close to alcohol poisoning he was.   
  
"I've been monitoring his vitals for the past two days, Master Barton, and had Dummy hide all the remaining bottles when the level of blood alcohol approached a dangerous count," JARVIS said, his synthesized voice radiating concern. Sometimes Tony's genius showed in the oddest ways.   
  
"Hey Tony, why don't you--"  
  
"She left," Tony said, voice low and slurred. He closed his eyes as if pained, scrunching them shut.   
  
"I know."  
  
"Easier this way."  
  
"What?" Clint wasn't blind. Pepper had looked awful when she left, so it couldn't have been easy for her, and judging by Tony's state, it wasn't easier for him either.   
  
"Easier now, before she hates me." Tony's voice was nothing more than a rough whisper, and Clint strained to hear every word. "She was going to, anyway. Same as you will, all of you will, eventually. Everyone leaves in the end. Easier this way.Before I get too attached. No one ever stays. No one has yet."   
  
There was only one response to that.   
  
Clint stayed.  
  
…  
  
He stayed for two days inside the workshop with Tony, sending updates to the rest of the team through JARVIS.   
  
For once, the world was on their side and there were no attacks.   
  
By the end of the third day Clint managed to drag Tony out sober, tired and stinky. He dragged him to his room and dumped him inside the shower.   
  
They never spoke of it, but Clint made a point to pester Tony daily in his workshop, remind him they were all still there. If it also served to annoy Tony, that was a bonus.  
  
…  
  
The next time they fought together, Hawkeye and Ironman covered each other's back seamlessly, the steady stream of snark on the comm managing to irritate even Natasha, who was more than used to Clint.   
  
They called it a victory.   
  
…  
  
Waking up alone in the bed wasn't something Clint really enjoyed, but he was used to. It was unavoidable as he and Natasha enjoyed seeing the sunrise from opposite sides of the day. He was a night person, had always been, and going to bed before he was bone tired was unthinkable unless he had a really good reason to.   
  
He followed the sound of voices talking quietly in the kitchen and the smell of freshly baked pastries and perfectly brewed coffee. Natasha and Steve were there, sitting on the table and talking animatedly. Natasha was wearing her training gear, and Steve was still in his pajama bottoms, a tight shirt that showed his incredible body stretched over his torso and a flour stain on his nose.   
  
Someone else would have been jealous at the scene, at the familiarity and fondness so clear between them. Steve was giving Natasha all of his attention, his pretty blue eyes focused on her face. She, in return, was smiling at him, probably recounting one of her more amusing missions. It was a smile very few people had seen, one that had been exclusively reserved for Clint before they moved to the tower. He wasn't jealous, he was just glad Natasha had found someone else she could relax around.   
  
"Morning," he mumbled, heading straight for the coffee machine and getting a cup. He sat next to Natasha, sipping in silence and feeling the caffeine wake him up fully. When his brain kicked into gear, there was a cinnamon roll in front of him.   
  
"I made them," Steve said, and Clint hummed appreciatively taking a bite. It was delicious, and he wolfed it down, motioning for another one with his mouth still full. Natasha laughed out loud, a sound that filled Clint with warmth and made Steve smile with pride, as if he knew the privilege it was to be allowed to hear it. "Here, before the rest of them descend on the kitchen like a pack of hungry wolves."  
  
As if summoned by their mention, or the fantastic smell of breakfast, the rest of the team piled into the kitchen a minute later. The ensuing chaos resembled more the feeding of starving beasts, than the breakfast of normal people.   
  
…  
  
They still had missions for SHIELD.   
  
They were fewer than before, and far between, but Clint and Natasha were occasionally called. They were coming back from the debrief and Clint had every intention of going straight to bed. Pick up was schedule and the ass-crack of dawn, and he needed his beauty sleep. He intended to exhaust himself with Natasha so he could get some sleep.  
  
The entire team was waiting for them in the living room.   
  
"So you leave in the morning," Tony said the moment the doors of the elevator were closed and Clint turned to Natasha, who shrugged as if saying  _It's Stark, what can you do?_  
  
"Yeah," he finally said.  
  
"Do you need assistance on your mission, my friends?" Thor asked, and it was easy to see the sincerity of the offer. "Those villains you chase deserve the harshest punishment for their deeds."  
  
It was supposed to be a classified mission, but nothing stayed a secret for long when Tony Stark was involved. "No. We're covered."  
  
"Good, bring those bastards down," Steve said, turning back to his book. "Oh, and if you can bring me some baklava and lokum on your way back. I've never tried them."  
  
So much for secrecy.  
  
"We will," Natasha said, a smile on her voice. "Now, we need to rest."  
  
She pulled Clint away from them and toward the elevator.  
  
"Oh, it's that how they're calling it now?" was the last thing they heard before the door closed, taking them to Clint's floor.   
  
…  
  
Clint Barton knew how truly bizarre and fucked up his life was the moment he heard his handler say into the comm, "Are the hostiles terrestrial?" and instead of smart-mouthing like he would have done six months before, asking whether he should be looking for E.T or Ripley's worst nightmare, or questioning her about her drinking habits, he just took a closer look at the targets. It was a pretty much standard question by now.  
  
"Yes ma'am, proper, boring human this time," he counted at least ten of them surrounding Natasha, all armed to the teeth. Nobody in their sane mind would have called the situation  _boring_. Then again, nobody in their sane mind would be living with an actual alien-slash-demigod, a rage monster, a ninety-something Supersoldier who looked barely old enough to drink and good enough to eat, and Tony fucking Stark.   
  
Maria Hill hummed thoughtfully for a second. "Any meta-humans?"  
  
And yeah, completely fucked up life when that was also a standard question. He scanned the crowd for the usual signs of a powered-up human among them. The only one who fitted the requirements, mainly heading straight into a war zone in a skimpy dress, without obvious weapons or back-up, was Natasha. And Clint knew she wasn't a meta-human, just scarily strong and not as alone as she appeared to be.  
  
"Unless they have a very shitty power or really dig the mercenary look, judging by their hardware, I'd say no, ma'am. Just your garden variety human psychopaths."  
  
"Good," Hill said after a second. "Hold position then and proceed as planned."  
  
Clint acknowledged the order and kept his position on the roof. From there he could see Natasha weaving her usual trap of deception and lies, managing to extract information while playing the helpless prisoner. It was something that never failed to crack up Clint; one would think that by that time, everyone in the underworld would be aware of the Black Widow's technique, and very wary of what they allowed to pass their lips in front of supposedly helpless girls. Not that many people left these encounters with their lives to tell the tale.   
  
This particular group was sloppy. They hadn't even tied her up, just held her at gunpoint. True, there were a lot of guns, but it was still Natasha. They were so outmatched it was pathetic.   
  
"Ma'am, the interrogation is winding down. Widow has extracted all the information we're going to get," he said when he saw the pre-arranged sign in Natasha's hand. They had one minute. "What's the order?"   
  
"Neutralize, agent. You have permission to shot to kill."  
  
"Yes ma'am." Clint took two arrows from his quiver, the simple steel-tipped ones, and took aim at the goons behind Natasha, watching her hand carefully for the countdown.   
  
When Natasha tapped her middle finger ten times against her thigh, Clint let the arrows loose. What followed was less of a fight and more like shooting fish in a barrel, something Clint would have felt a lot worse about had he not seen the pictures of what was left of the girls that particular group of scum had discarded from their trafficking ring after kidnapping them. They had been the lucky ones, at least luckier than the ones they kept.   
  
Two minutes later Natasha walked out of the abandoned warehouse were they had taken her, Clint climbing down his perch to meet her at street level, his gear safely hidden inside a backpack slung over his shoulder. She had a nasty bruise already forming on her jaw, and a scratch over her brow where one of the goons had glanced her with a knife before Clint put an arrow through his throat. He passed her a communicator and she started relaying all the information to Hill while they walked to the extraction point.   
  
"Good work agents, we'll be moving on the main target in two hours."  
  
"Are we on the attack team?" Natasha asked, still highly strung with adrenaline and bloodlust. She had also seen the pictures.   
  
"Negative. Be in the extraction point in two hours, you're heading back to HQ for debriefing. Hill out."  
  
Natasha looked around them, her mouth pressed in a tight line. She had wanted to be on that team, they both had, but they had been working for two days straight on that case, and Hill's call to make them stand down was the correct one. It still burned, especially when they had a lot of pent up aggression and no target to release it against.   
  
Natasha abruptly turned a corner and walked down a dark alley, grabbing Clint's arm and dragging him with her. The next he knew, he was pressed against the grimy wall, surrounded by darkness and with Natasha firmly pressed against his body.   
  
She kissed as if she was still fighting, biting his lips and shoving her tongue inside his mouth with little preamble. Clint's body got on with the program quick enough, grabbing her waist and pushing her closer, so tight it almost hurt, sucking on her tongue and moaning into her mouth. "Tasha."  
  
She groaned when he put his hands on her ass, lifting her and switching their positions. She pulled the skirt of her dress up to her waist and started working on his belt and zipper, breaking the kiss to tilt her head back, exposing her neck. Clint took advantage of the offer, mouthing at her neck and biting softly at her pulse point.   
  
"Clint," she gasped, pushing his trousers down and encircling him with her legs. "Come on, Clint."  
  
It wasn't the best place for this, but he was incredibly turned on, the adrenaline high and Natasha's body conspiring to make him unable to resist her. Besides, they had done it in worse places than this. She shook against him when he finally slid inside her, grabbing his head to guide it to her breasts. Clint pushed the fabric of her bra down, sucking one her nipples into his mouth and covering her other breast with his hand, Natasha's legs pressing him harder inside her body. He could feel her trembling, gasping as she pushed down against him, using the wall as leverage. It was frantic, and harsh, and when Clint removed his hand from her breast to find her clit, Natasha let out a loud moan and clenched around him, relaxing her death grip on his head minutely. He kissed her again, swallowing her moans while he kept fucking into her, faster and harder and so good. She was tensing up again, each thrust rubbing against her clit, her hands gripping his shoulders punishingly hard, and Clint could feel his own orgasm building up, the heat and feel of Natasha around him, her panting breaths in his mouth. He cupped her breast again, rolling a nipple between his fingers and twisting, not too hard, and Natasha shuddered and came, gripping him tighter. Clint pushed once more inside her before he came, sagging against her body as the last of the tension left him. They stayed like that for a few minutes, still joined but just kissing languidly. Clint pushed Natasha's hair away from her forehead and smiled at her as he moved back a step, breaking the kiss and slipping out of her body.   
  
"You ok?"  
  
"Yeah," she said with a soft smile, one very few people had seen. "I really needed that."  
  
He kissed her, a soft press of his lips against her just because he could. "Me too."  
  
They composed themselves in silence, exiting the alley and heading towards the extraction point. This time they weren't tense anymore, but exhausted, and kept bumping shoulders as they walked. To anyone, they would have looked like a half drunken couple after a tryst, and when they reached the populated part of the city nobody gave them a second look.   
  
They were almost at the agreed location when Natasha stopped in front of a shop. There were a few shops still open at that time of night, mostly selling food. In this case, it looked like sweets, and Clint raised an eyebrow at her.   
  
"One minute, I promised Steve," she darted inside, and Clint saw her through the window gesticulating at the clerk to show what she wanted.   
  
She came back a minute later with a wrapped parcel in her hand, both of them ready to go.   
  
…  
  
The first thing they noticed when the lift reached the top floor of the tower was the noise.   
  
The Avengers could be considered a lot of things, but quiet was not one of them. There were shouts, and explosions, and Thor's booming laugh, and the mechanical whirring that came with living with Tony Stark and his never ending supply of bots.   
  
The living room was trashed. Again.  
  
There was a holographic counter over the humongous TV set that said "Days since the last refurbishing". It was set to 0 and blinking steadily. There was a Wii-mote sticking out of the TV, the coffee table was broken in two and a couple of cleaner bots were chasing Thor around the room. Bruce was sitting on the couch, watching the scene calmly, but Clint could see he had a remote control in his hands, and he wouldn't put it past him to be the one controlling the bots. Tony was standing in front of an embarrassed looking Steve, gesturing wildly at the TV and the Wii-mote in his hand, showing the cord looped around his wrist.   
  
Clint turned to Natasha with a smile. "Honey, I'm home."  
  
"Yes, we are."  
  
She pushed him out of the elevator and into the insanity.   
  
…


End file.
